Which will be first?

Today I watched a short video about the projected demise of the Asian corner shop. Back in 1995 I retired early from Local Government to start a business of my own. I had always wanted to be my own boss and I thought that if I could find the right corner shop I could make a go of it. But what I discovered was that, although I expected passing trade, I would experience a different version. There was plenty of passing trade. Everyone was off in their cars to the big supermarket to shop for what they needed. I thought they would at least pop in for small forgotten items, but I was wrong.

The world today is conditioned to one stop shopping and the corner shop is doomed. Even the Asians who have turned the corner shop into an artform can see the end of their life style. For a few years I did become my own boss and discovered how many of the Asian shops were on borrowed time. I was a business advisor to small businesses and I talked to many Asian shop owners and they all told the same story. Their children have no aspirations to take over the business and no one else will buy it.

So, the only question to be answered is how long will the Asian corner shop last? Following its demise, will we see countless closed down shops which make a place look totally depressed? In city and large town suburbs it is the lights of the local shops that brighten up the scene. I try to imagine what will be there when the shops have closed. I am sure that it will be a place that oozes depression.

But what of the Church today? Is it going the same way? Is it likely to survive in any form? The way I see it is this. There are many beautiful village churches dating back to medieval times. Their architecture is beautiful and they tell us of early building methods. Inside they are ancient and often have family vaults for the lords of the manor. They are surrounded with graves which tell the local history. But do they attract the size of congregation they always used to have? No. As a church in the sense that Jesus considered appropriate and Paul inaugurated as he took the gospel to the gentile world, our village parish church is an irrelevance.

Turn to the churches of the reformed tradition: Methodist, Baptist and United Reformed Churches. These are sometimes to be found in villages too. They usually still outnumber the Anglican churches in each village in Wales. Then we look at the towns and the cities and we see the same on a larger scale. We see many church buildings now in use as something else. They can be used as houses, flats, warehouse, factories etc. But this depresses me to see the church buildings outlive their usefulness and pass into the hands of others.

It is said that the demise of the churches in the UK is worse in Wales than anywhere. I imagine this is because of the great Welsh Revival of 1904. A very evangelical and fundamentalist message spread like wildfire in the early days of the 20th century. Small churches were going up at a rapid pace in those days. Then the revival ran out of steam, numbers levelled off and then began to fall. Today, in many places, you can see very small congregations attending "chapel" as the Welsh call it. Some are in small numbers for an additional reason to the national trend - they worship exclusively in Welsh.

So it is that we see very many churches still in use when they are not really viable as communities of working Christians. Very small groups have to shoulder an amazingly heavy burden in property maintenance alone. They remember fondly the days when you had to get there early to avoid having to stand. But in those days the reason why people were there in large numbers was that it was the perceived way of life. Today there are many many more attractions that fall into what we call the way of life.

I ask, therefore, which will be last to go -our churches or our Asian corner shops? Both are doomed and both have become an irrelevance.

The various denominations today have very much fewer church attenders, very much fewer ministers and worship leaders, but relatively high numbers of buildings which take an enormous amount of cash to maintain. Let's face it, they are often not really well maintained properly because of the costs involved. So, despite the beauty of some of the buildings, they are a drain on finance. The obvious answer is to get rid of them and regroup, but their members will not let go!

Yet it has always been true that, ever since people were allowed to go to church voluntarily and given the freedom to think for themselves in the matter of religion, church attendance figures did not matter. In medieval times it was the law that forced people to attend church regularly. They were also told what they must believe and if they had other ideas they suffered penalties for heresy. In those times it was essential to build enough churches to hold the worshippers. Today we have to try to attract worshippers. In fact, the problem of how to do this is the biggest problem the church has.

For myself I believe we have to look at what the role of the church is in its locality. There must be countless people who need help of one sort or another. It is only when you go into the local community that you realise the role of the church. You will never discover that role inside the church building at worship time. A couple of years ago I was asked to see a family who had lost the father, a relatively young man in his forties. In a short while I was to conduct his funeral service at the local crematorium. When I sat and talked with the widow and her daughter I found that they had relied totally on the father for decisions and advice. That evening I ended up giving debt counselling and motor insurance advice! A few weeks later I was at the crematorium again for the funeral of a woman who turned out to be in the same extended family. A young woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Remember me?"

I was surprised to see her there and she told me the deceased was mother in law to her brother. Then I realise why I thought I recognised the young man in the front pew. "How are you doing?" I asked, "Fine," she said, "I sorted out the motor insurance and mum made temporary arrangements for paying the rent. I also got my job back!" It was excellent news to hear. It thrilled me to have her seek me out after the service to tell me she had acted on my advice and it had worked!

Since I have been taking funeral services I have taken seventy five out of eighty two where I did not know the family beforehand. Of these I have visited most of them to learn about the deceased so that I can speak about them at the funeral service. Those visits have been a dimension of which I had previously had no knowledge. Each one was a privilege as I sat with a grieving family to speak about their loved ones. There have been premature deaths, a cot death, a still birth, and many more different cirtcumstances to take account of. All this has helped me learn a great deal about families who normally never step into a church. I have seen great love and dignity expressed on those occasions. I thank God for this experience which has added to my faith in humanity.

This is where the church works best - in the community. We have to get out there in different ways to make contact with people who, though have no knowledge of it, need us and our message. If we do not we shall in the race with the corner shops to oblivion. We might even win!

Jesus comes to John in the desert

Do you remember the late President Ronald Reagan saying "You aint seen nothin yet?" Well this was what John the Baptist was banging on like when Jesus went to him for baptism. John was speaking to his listeners and saying "You brood of vipers!" Well, that was a good start wasn't it. We turn to the Bible, expecting it to be the source of Good News. If we accidentally opened it at Luke 3 we would get a shock. You see, John is really the last of the Prophets from the old school, or should I say the Old Testament. He is going at it, hammer and tongs, telling them to repent because the Messiah is on his way and expected very soon. I wonder if he said, "Wait till my cousin gets here!"

At the end of his ranting and raving the verse in Luke's gospel says, "So, with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people." Good news? Sounds more like bad news to me! I don't suppose those people present would actually be expecting anything different from John. As far as they were concerned he was preaching in just the way they expected. But, the point is, the way he was ranting makes the message a threat about things to come. Yes, there was a new era about to break upon them but it would not be like it had been previously where the people would suffer God's judgment. The thing is, John did not know this. I imagine he had committed himself to this life of preaching in the desert without thinking much about what style he should adopt. He simply copied what had gone on before.

After he had baptised Jesus, he found himself in prison because he had been criticising Herod too much. In his prison cell, he was obviously regularly updated on what Jesus was doing. Because he sent a message to Jesus, saying, "are you the one we should expect or is there another guy coming along who we should follow?" This new way that Jesus had was puzzling John, as well as many others who had a vested interest in keeping things the way they were.

Put yourself in John's shoes (but jump out before you get carted off for execution) and think about what he had been created to do as the herald for the ministry of Jesus. He knows he is special and that he has been singled out to do this job. But no one has told him how to do it. So he gives out the bottom line, threatening the people if they do not heed what he says. He tells them that there is somone coming who will really sort things out, and then when Jesus arrives he begins consorting with the ones who are beyond the pale. This makes no sense to John at all.

What Jesus offers to the people, then and now, is God's grace. His grace is his love but to receive it we don't have to do anything. It is freely given. That's why the hymn writer started with the words, "Amazing grace." It is truly amazing that God should show his love to absolutely everyone despite the various lives they have led. Jesus really shook the Pharisees when he went have tea with people who collected taxes and robbed their fellow Jews. They were nothing short of gobsmacked!

The beauty of this is that we are entitled to God's love just because we are here! "You aint seen nothin yet!" shouts John. Then along comes Jesus and starts telling the people about a loving God who loves them unconditionally. I mean - it sounds crazy, doesn't it? Yet this is exactly what Jesus did. There was no flash about him. He had already sorted that out before his ministry began. His temptation in the desert was threefold: 1. Jump off the temple and land unharmed on the ground. That will impress the people and get them to take notice of you. 2. Be a magician and use your power to turn stones into bread rolls. 3. Make a pact with the Devil so you have his backing too and you then cannot fail.

All this was thrown out because it was not the way God did things and was not the style he was to use in preaching God's love to the population. There would be no tricks of any sort. There was one way only. That decided, he began to teach in a way that the poor people knew he was for them. The rich folks thought they had it made. You see, people in that day thought that, if they were rich and had umpteen servants and hundreds of sheep, cows, camels etc., then they were favoured by God. Jesus spelled it out - this was not true. Because the poor and the sick needed most help he went to them and gave them hope by talking about the grace of God.

Strangely enough, it was this new style of approach that made thousands follow him when he was preaching and healing. There was a lot to learn about God from this man, Jesus, so they set off each day to see and hear more for themselves.

This went on for three years before his enemies managed to grab him in the Garden of Gethsemane. In that short time he said and did enough for the world to be saved. It was quite some time later that the good news was taken out of Palestine to be shared with the world. But it happened, and successfully.

Take out of your mind all the thoughts you have about judgment. God's love is free to all - even those guys you don't like!

The photo at the top of this blog is of a statue on a high pedestal at the top of Monte Torro in Menorca. It shows Jesus with outstreched arms. It is carved like this to tell people all over that Jesus welcomes them and they qualify for his love just because they exist! Remember that old song, "He's got the whole world in his hands!"